Part 1: The basics

The Morrowind Graphics Guide (MGG for short) is all about improving the game's visuals while still maintainting the vanilla game's aesthetics. In this first part you will find a list of mods that enhance the graphics with the least amount of effort. There are also necessary engine refinements and bug fixes included. Using a mod manager, such as Mod Organizer, is recommended for speeding up the process. Mods are listed in the best order of installation, mods overwriting each other is by design. Should you have any questions, then you're welcome to join the discord channel found here!

Some common questions:

Question: Why isn't there detailed instructions for all the mods?

Answer: While some of the mods require some extra step, most mods are installed the default way, which is covered by all mod managers.

If a mod have optionals and they're not mentioned here, then you are free to choose yourself.

[Morrowind Code Patch]

Description: Patches bugs in the Morrowind engine, which cannot otherwise be fixed by editing scripts or data files.

Mesh and texture replacements

Mesh and texture replacers are usually quite safe and easy to install. The only thing to be careful with is the packing of the mod. Sometimes there's an extra layer or two of folders. That means that you can't auto-install them, you have to use the "set data folder" feature of mod organizer to get many of these mods installed right. Mods that can't be downloaded via Mod Organizer should still be installed with it by dragging the archive to the "downloads" tab. Luckily this doesn't take much time. You can see how it's done here.

[Creature VFX restoration]

[Ozzy's Grass Merged]

Description: This is a merged version of Ozzy's Grass mod for use with MGE, it is also compatible with OpenMW
Special Instructions:
Generating distant land with plugin is required, disable it afterwards.

Part 2: Further enhancements

It's strongly suggested you play a bit with part one before starting on this part, as that can be enough of an improvement for many players.

[Daedric Intervention - 2K retexture]

Description: This big pluginless compilation adds High Quality (2048) textures for Daedric architecture, creatures, armor and weapons.
Special Instructions:
Download each separate submod intead of the main file.

[HQ Bug Shells]

[Improved Better Skulls]

Description: Better Skulls" is a great mod that greatly improves the look of the various skulls found in the game, and increases visual consistency by using the skull from the skeleton instead of the crude vanilla skulls.

[Lily Pad Replacer]

[Apel's Asura Coast and Sheogorath replacer]

Description: This mode is retexture and mesh replacer for Asura Coast & Sheogorath Regions.
Special Instructions:
Needs to be placed before Vanilla Land in the load order. Disable "meshes\f\Terrain_rock_AC_06.nif"